Remdesivir was developed with public funds. Shouldn't the fact that the public shouldered the risk of development be factored into any of this?

https://www.uab.edu/news/health/item/11082-investigational-c...

Technically true, but completely misrepresents the issue.

Discovering (100s of)compounds in a lab (which is what the public funds pay for) is the easy and much cheaper part.

Testing it in humans and modifying it for that purpose is hard, expensive, and time consuming. Pretending like these drug companies do nothing and just take all the benefit from public research is incorrect.

I never said they did nothing. I'm pointing out that they aren't the John Galt story that people are lead to believe when people mention "recouping cost". And like any other shareholder, shouldn't we see something of a benefit for putting up our own capital?

Here on HN, we should easily be able to see through this trope. The government made a $37.5 million grant to study a range of drugs. How much equity should the government get for what basically amounts to seed funding for the $1 billion cost of bringing a drug to market? (Account for dilution and the fact that the “investor” here doesn’t put more money into subsequent funding rounds.)

That's a good point.

That said arguably that there are many kinds of methods for funding the creation of drugs. The existing system isn't the only way. Your statement is literally, "stick with the status quo". The NIH should fund and produce these drugs, no patents, free for all to produce.

What second or third order effects might happen? I’m not saying the status quo is the only reasonable equilibrium, but if you take the profit motive out of something (anything), I worry that you’ll get fewer of society’s resources directed towards that area. Maybe that’s money, attention of the brightest/most creative thinkers, willingness to do the outright drudgery required to invent, perceived status of the field, etc.

If you want a lot of drug research, you probably want to ensure that successful drug research is lucrative. (Maybe less than today, maybe making unsuccessful research or negative reproduction more lucrative than today.)

The scientists doing the work could be getting paid the exact same by the government as opposed to investors looking to make 1000x returns.

In fact, I’m pretty sure the taxpayers are subsidizing investors with all the free research and knowledge they get from taxpayer funded higher educational facilities.

Lol if you think investors are getting 1000x returns then why aren’t you investing in all the pharma companies :)

I wrote looking to make 1000x returns, not getting 1000x returns. If I was investing into pharma R&D, I would also be looking for commensurate returns and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Developing medicines is a high risk venture. But the rewards are extremely high also, so maybe it merits the resources of all of society. This is ignoring that US taxpayers already pay for a significant portion of the R&D via universities.

Your original argument basically applies to everything, why shouldn’t the government just pay everyone’s salary since we’ve all benefited from some subsidy. 80-90% of drugs are discover by private companies doing research. Also, i think you would find that those scientists that you claim could just be paid by the government would leave those jobs when they inevitably have an idea that their risk adverse bureaucratic boss doesn’t want to pursue. Then they will find some rich fiends to invest and start companies themselves and we will be back to where we are now :). Unless you force everyone to work for the state... Anyway, I don’t feel like getting into the capitalism vs socialism but if you do a bit of research I’m sure you can discover why the current model works.

> The NIH should fund and produce these drugs, no patents, free for all to produce.

There is nothing to stop that under the current model. It just isn't happening.

Creating drugs is usually not the big cost. Regulatory compliance is.

Reforming the FDA process could save an large amount of lives and money.

What are the other kinds of methods

Gilead can still be paid for the treatments produced, but if they cannot create supply to meet demand during an unprecedented crisis, they should not be allowed to become the bottleneck.

They have offered to let generics produce it without royalty fees.

Just because it is doesn't mean it ought to be. This, in fact, seems to be a pretty clear indication of why alternative funding methods should be considered.

Alternative funding methods already exist. Nothing is stopping governments or nonprofits from funding or developing new drugs. So what's your proposal here?